


Something Fun

by Drac



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Baking, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8880091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac
Summary: Wallace babysits the Empress, but girls just wanna have fun.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dayari (derryday)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryday/gifts).



‘Please, Wallace.’

‘I told you before; I shan’t, and I won’t. Honestly, I’m woefully unprepared for such a task. I’m disgusted you’d even ask - shirking your duties.’

‘Wallace.’

‘No! What could possibly be so important -’

‘ _Wallace_.’

‘- what?’

‘I have the most tremendous cramps.’

There is a certain victory to making a man twice your age blush to the roots of his hair with just the tiniest hint at what might be happening in one’s downstairs department, but Callista is honestly too miserable to care right now. Wallace, to his credit, stops entirely in his train of refusals.

‘I - well, alright then. What do you want me to - Miss Curnow, I’m hardly _qualified_ -’

‘You’re more than qualified. Please, just keep her out of the tower for a few hours, so I can have a cup of willow tea and a nap. _Please_.’

‘Okay, alright, I’ll keep her in here. Go take care of yourself.’

Callista grins, and raises her voice, ‘Emily, you can come in now!’

Wallace lowers his - ‘She was there the entire time! You _devious_ \- Your Majesty!’

Callista smirks and pats Emily on the back as they cross each other and she leaves.

‘Hello, Mister Higgins. I’m going to sit quiet here and do my picture, don’t you worry. I’m not going to get into any trouble, I promise.’

There is blessed quiet for all of ten minutes, while Emily finishes the picture she brought in with her, amending a few flowers around the base of her tower. It seems absurd, the young Empress with her tongue between her teeth, carefully adding rosy smiles to poorly-drawn faces, but endearing nonetheless. When she’s finished, she holds it out in front of herself at arm’s length and says, ‘Lovely. Don’t you think so, Mister Higgins?’

‘Beautiful, your Majesty. I like - I like Callista’s new hairstyle.’

‘Me too,’ says Emily, ‘she takes it down at night, it looks ever so pretty. You can have it, if you want. I’m running out of space.’

‘If you’re _sure_ -’ Emily’s already flung it at him, and he’s very careful not to crumple it as he grabs it out of the air, and lays it out on the bunk above his, ‘- thank you, your Majesty.’

‘Uh-huh,’ says Emily, but she’s not really paying attention, sketching away on her next piece of paper, ‘what should I draw next?’

‘I… don’t know, your Majesty. How about this pear?’

‘This pear?’ Emily asks, incredulous, ‘No. I use my imagination.’ She taps a finger to her temple, and closes her eyes in thought, ‘Something fun, like a party.’

Wallace dejectedly puts the pear back on its shelf. He thinks pears are fun.

‘How about a party, then?’

‘Brilliant idea, Mister Higgins! I’ve already drawn you, so… you can be there. Do you like it?’

Emily’s little drawing of him has a big rectangular head and much more impressive sideburns than he truly has, and it is the greatest honour ever bestowed upon him.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Lovely. What else? How about a cake? I do love it when a party has cake.’

A slightly lopsided, cylindrical cake floats in the centre of Emily’s drawing, and then, slowly, she draws Wallace’s arms growing out like stalks to hold it.

‘Okay,’ she says, studying it, ‘maybe the cake’s for you - maybe it’s your birthday! When’s your birthday, Mister Higgins?’

‘I - not until Songs, Your Majesty.’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘in the summer. Okay, maybe not. Maybe you made it. Can you bake?’

‘I make our bread every day.’

‘Oh!’ says Emily, ‘I love bread! I didn’t know you -’ she trails off, and there’s a slow, dawning joy spreading across her face, ‘Mister Higgins,’ she says, a little breathless with excitement, ‘we could make a cake!’

‘I -’ Wallace is caught off-guard, not quick enough to deny her, and she’s already listing off other, more complicated party fare they could make -

‘Or, if not a cake, perhaps we could make a tall gelatine, or pastry flowers, or -’ she gasps, ‘- game pie with an egg in it!’

‘Cake!’ says Wallace, ‘We - we probably have the ingredients for a sponge.’

‘Aw,’ says Emily, ‘not game pie? Not even with an egg?’

‘We don’t have game. Not even potted.’

‘Aw,’ says Emily, ‘I like sponge cake though. My mother did too - they named one after her.’

She takes a deep, steadying breath, and hops up onto her feet.

‘Alright, what’s the recipe? What do we need? Is it downstairs?’

‘I - yes, Your Majesty. Most of it’s in the cellar.’

Children are exhausting in a way Wallace had entirely forgotten about. No wonder Callista wanted time to herself.

‘Okay!’ says Emily, and with that she runs out of the back door of the servant’s quarters and down into the storeroom.

‘Okay!’ she shouts, as Wallace rushes after her, ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Wait, wait. We need flour, and sugar, and butter, and -’

‘Don’t you have a recipe book?’

Wallace bristles instinctively, ‘My Lady - I mean, Your Majesty, I don’t need a recipe book.’

‘Wow,’ says Emily, and she stands tall as she can by his side, ready for action, ‘okay, Chef Higgins, you lead the way.’

-

There are weevils in the flour. This is not unexpected, but it is humiliating to hear the rattle of an _insect_ in the sieve while baking for _The Empress_.

‘Oh wow,’ says Emily, and she lets the weevil run up her hand, ‘I’ve never seen a weevil before.’

‘I should hope you never do again. Please put it in that jar, we’ll deal with it later.’

‘Deal? Mister Higgins, you’re not going to _stomp_ it, are you?’

‘It’s a filthy insect!’

‘But it’s _cute_!’

Emily has enormous dark eyes like a gazelle. They’re hypnotic.

‘I - would you be satisfied if we freed them?’

‘I’d rather _keep_ them.’ She giggles as the weevil crawls across her wrists, but eventually puts it into the jar for safekeeping. ‘I’ll ask Callista if I can keep them. What are you doing?’

‘Still sifting flour, Your Majesty.’

‘And have we got everything? Can I crack these eggs? I’ve never cracked an egg before,’ she says, bouncing on her heels at Wallace’s arm.

‘Weighed ingredients first.’

Emily sighs, sniffs, and sneezes a lungful of floury air. Wallace pulls the bowl towards him, and gestures with sieve before he starts upending sugar into it -

‘Butter has the numbers on the packet. We need the same amount as the flour. That’s -’ he’s never been good with the numbers, not when they get up in the hundreds. The scale reads - well, it’s over the two hundred, far from the four hundred, he loses count of the tiny divisions between and his eyes aren’t fantastic up close, ‘- two hundred and thirty,’ he feigns confidence, and his Empress takes the knife and slices the butter, fresh paper and all, in one fell swoop.

He sifts sugar up to four hundred grams; damn, two hundred is half of that, a spoonful of baking powder, and Emily dumps the still-wrapped butter lump into the bowl in a shower of tiny particles that snow down on the pair of them.

‘It works better unwrapped,’ he coughs, ‘let me.’ Unwrapping the butter is a more difficult job than anticipated when his flour and sugar are so well-sifted and airy, and as he places the paper on the bar, Emily appears at his elbow, clutching an egg in her greasy fist.

‘I’m ready,’ she says. Wallace is not ready. Emily slams the egg down once, twice, three times against the lip of the bowl, and then it shatters in her hand and oozes between her fingers. ‘Ow!’ she says, and drops it, crushed shell and all, into the bowl.

‘Ah,’ says Wallace, ‘are you alright?’

‘I thought I got an egg splinter!’ She examines her hand for injury, and finding none, turns her attention back to the bowl. ‘Oh no. That’s not right, is it?’

‘Not… entirely. We can pick them out. Be careful now.’

‘Oh _phew_ \- I really am excited for this cake, Mister Higgins. I haven’t had cake for months and months.’

‘Since -’ no, he’ll hold his tongue -

‘Not since I lived at the tower. And I’ve never ever made it myself before. Do you want to do the next egg?’

Wallace, having removed most of the offending eggshell, cracks the second with scientific precision, while Emily looks on, rapt.

‘My turn,’ she says, and makes the next two attempts; better than her first go, rather messier than required. ‘I don’t get it. This is so hard. Can we mix it yet?’

‘Almost. We have to put the milk in.’

‘Can I pour?’

No, Wallace wants to say, but his traitorous subservient mouth says ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’

The first tablespoon of milk is neat, not breaking surface tension over its lip. The second is a fantastic sloshing, and Emily just manages to stop the bottle from slipping from her hands entirely.

‘Ah!’ There’s no saving it, as the milk soaks into the dry ingredients. Wallace, having worked for the Pendletons his entire life, has more patience than the average man. He watches the milk sink with the quiet despair of a man on a desert island watching a ship disappear over the horizon.

‘This is fine,’ he says, ‘why don’t you start mixing.’

Emily mixes with vigour, and sets down the bowl with the mixture lumpy, clearly proud of herself. The cake’s a lost cause anyway. Perhaps Wallace can bake another, swap them out somehow.

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘into the tins now?’

‘Yes, in just -’

No, Emily has already decanted half of the miserable batter into one ungreased pan. Wallace presses his hands together against his lips, and watches her pour the second half into the second tin with constant, barely-perceptible head shaking.

Emily ignores him.

-

After almost an hour in the stove, the cake appears not to be entirely raw inside. Emily is ecstatic. The bar is thankfully clean once more, and she is holding a jar of fruit conserve to her chest like a baby doll. Wallace painstakingly peels the cakes away from their tins; they’re the worst things he’s ever been associated with. The look even sorrier for themselves when they’re cooled, sunk onto themselves about bulbous centres.

‘I am sorry, Your Majesty. I can bake you another.’

Emily doesn’t listen, smearing half a jar of conserve onto the flaked dome of the cake Wallace, personally, would have kept as the top half of the sandwich. The other is placed atop it precariously, slips somewhat, and Emily crushes it down with both hands, then looks upon it with awe.

‘My very first cake. It’s beautiful.’

Wallace says nothing as Emily cuts two narrow slices for the pair of them.

‘It’s delicious!’ says Emily, and spits out a piece of eggshell. It’s not; greasy and dense and curiously crunchy, Wallace swallows it out of national duty.

‘You’ll have to write down the recipe for me! I love it!’

-

When Callista comes downstairs in the evening, eyes less pain-bright, the cake is still mostly untouched, and Emily is drawing in one of the booths while Wallace dozes opposite her, propping his head on his fist.

‘Callista! We made a cake! Would you like a piece?’

On closer inspection, there are a few pieces abandoned around the room with single bites out of them. Wallace, haggard, is shaking his head at her.

‘Of course, Emily.’

-

Emily pins the picture over her bed when she retires that night. Her, and Mister Higgins, holding up her brilliant cake. The cake is left on the bar for Corvo.

Corvo eats it. Of course he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to my wonderful and beautiful friend Derry! Please accept this small gift as a token of my regard. You're the best


End file.
